by Kevin Stevens , USA TODAY Sports

by Kevin Stevens , USA TODAY Sports

DELHI - A slice of Delaware County-bred innovation will help shape the outcome of the Super Bowl.

Those goal posts that will be targeted by kickers Matt Prater of Denver and Steven Hauschka of Seattle Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., are the doing of Sportsfield Specialties, Inc., a manufacturer of sports construction equipment located on State Highway 10 in Delhi.

Sunday will be the first of three consecutive Super Bowl venues that will have SSI's fingerprint, as University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona (2015) and Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Cal. (2016) also feature the company's patented AdjustRight Football Goal Posts - rolled, machined, welded and powder-coated at SSI's 60,000 square-foot manufacturing facility.

Neither those in attendance Sunday nor the millions viewing on television will give a second thought to the goal posts until a field goal try strays just wide of or caroms off an upright. Count David Moxley among the minority.

"Like you say, you go to a game, grab a hot dog and a beer and the uprights are just there - but that's the first thing that I look at at every field," said Moxley, Sportsfield Specialties' director of sports construction sales. " â?¦ And there's our emblem at the end of the goal post. It's a good feeling to know that you're employing people in Upstate New York and you put out a high-quality product. It's a good feeling."

Sportsfield Specialties grew out of Clark Companies - which operates from a neighboring wing of the Route 10 complex - in 1998. Clark Companies was founded in Delhi in 1948 and originally operated under the name Burton Clark Excavating. Today, Clark Companies specializes in the design and construction of high-end outdoor athletic facilities.

"Ball safety" products such as netting accounts for a good bit of SSI's business, Moxley said, noting the company recently secured a contract with Notre Dame University to provide $750,000 worth of netting to be installed the first quarter of this year. Promats Athletics, an SSI subsidiary located in Salisbury, N.C., manufactures protective padding for stadium walls, dugouts and railings that have been installed at an assortment of professional baseball stadiums.

As for SSI's signature on display on Super Bowl Sunday, 37-year-old Delhi native Moxley was asked: How does a company get into the goal post business to begin with?

"We've taken products, some of which have existed for a long time, some of them are items we've come up with, and we've taken them from a catalog approach where a company maybe just mailed out catalogs to different people and try to get them to use their products to a concerted effort of innovating a product, making it better and taking it to people who are installing it and saying, 'Hey, we think we've come up with a better mousetrap,'" he said.

"A perfect example is our football goal posts."

In order to transition the MetLife Stadium floor from football to other events - i.e., concerts, soccer matches, motocross - convenient and efficient removal and installation of the goal posts was required. The request was for customized, manually-hinged posts mounted to a base plate beneath the surface.

The posts are removed by attaching it via cable from the gooseneck to a maintenance vehicle and using the hinge mechanism to lower the post to the ground for removal. Reinstallation is a simple matter of reversing the process.

Also available through SSI is a goal post that can be rotated 180 degrees, thereby eliminating for potential interference with - for instance - a soccer ball when that sport is in play at a multi-purpose facility.

A combination hinged/rotating model also is available and the company's AdjustRight technology assures the uprights are adjustable so that they are straight and true.

"We've done that with the crossbar as well, so even if for some reason it were to get tweaked - and if it's installed correctly it shouldn't get tweaked - but if for some reason it did by a high wind or somebody dunked on it, it allows you to level everything back up, re-tighten the bolts and you're true every time," Moxley said.

By way of illustrating the MetLife Stadium product's durability, he pointed to two touchdowns scored by New Orleans tight end Jimmy Graham against the Jets this season, and the subsequent dunks withstood.

Multiple components comprise the finished product: Uprights, crossbar, gooseneck, and in some cases the ground sleeve implanted below the surface. Pieces are cut on a saw, and considerable milling and welding come into play before powder coating provides vibrant color. In all, roughly 17 hours worth of labor goes into each goal post produced.

Eric Hulbert, SSI's Operations manager, said about 750 goal posts were produced by the company in 2013, and estimates that figure will rise to around 800 this year.

His description of the facility when in full beehive mode: Controlled chaos.

"We've grown so fast," said Hulbert, who grew up in nearby Walton. "When we started producing goal posts in 2003, we were doing wonders to get 90 done. Now we're nearly 10 times that amount, and all of our other product lines have grown as well.

"It's pretty crazy through the four busy months of the year," primarily prime construction season, May through August.